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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715622">i won't let you stay lonely</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/amessofgaywords/pseuds/amessofgaywords'>amessofgaywords</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Six - Marlow/Moss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, and that's just how it be, anne is a chaos angel, anne is here to take care of her because that's who she is, cathy gets a crappy comment and breaks down, henry is here but in a dream of sorts, just be careful if that's bad for you, there are hints of parrlyn but nothing heavy, tw also for some abuse and power dynamics between cathy and henry, tw for heavy abusive language</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:54:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,041</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715622</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/amessofgaywords/pseuds/amessofgaywords</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The words are typed in Arial font, size 12. They occupy one line of text on her screen, one measly little line that shouldn’t mean anything. Of the thousands of words Cathy’s read, thousands of words in the universe, these fourteen words should not be making her feel like she can’t breathe.</p><p>or cathy receieves a hate comment in the middle of the night, it triggers some repressed memories, and anne ends up being a surprisingly comforting presence.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i won't let you stay lonely</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>here is an idea that wouldn't get out of my head. also, it is a personal headcanon that cathy has a writing blog where she often posts lengthy diatribes about various political opinions. hope y'all enjoy.</p><p>tw for abusive language at the beginning and some slight emotional abuse by henry a bit later on. just be warned.</p><p>title from 5 o'clock by t-pain, of all things.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s a weight on her chest, suffocating, heavy and hot and it chokes her. She can feel her heartbeat everywhere in her body; her hands have gone numb but an irregular <i>tha-thump</i> echoes in them anyway. Her vision clouds, memory pressing in on every part of her until she shrinks down to just a compressed line of text on a pixelated screen.</p><p><b>richboy420</b> – 8:13 PM<br/>
<i>fuckin witch go spew ur fuckin sjw shit sumwhere else you crazy ass bitch just fuckin die already</i></p><p>The words are typed in Arial font, size 12. They occupy one line of text on her screen, one measly little line that shouldn’t mean anything. Of the thousands of words Cathy’s read, thousands of words in the universe, these fourteen words should not be making her feel like she can’t breathe.</p><p>The kitchen is dead silent. It’s past three A.M. by this point, so of course it is. Cathy had been up working and had come down for a cup of coffee and maybe a muffin, bringing her laptop with her. She was going to go through and respond to some of the comments on her most recent essay on gender politics. It was supposed to be a break. It was supposed to be fine.</p><p>Instead, there’s this, fourteen words on a computer screen that leave the taste of dirt in her mouth and a thin layer of dust on her arms, a film that won’t go away. Like the flour Jane leaves out when she bakes, Cathy is covered in other people’s messes. She scratches at her arms but she doesn’t feel any cleaner.</p><p>It’s getting harder and harder for her to breathe, the stale air of the house clogging her lungs until she tastes stone and grime and the stench of animals, until the walls around her close in and the lights dim and-</p><p>She recognizes this place.</p><p>“You’ve come for something, Catherine?”</p><p>She is kneeling on the ground, her dress pooled in an elegant circle around her, though none of this situation could ever be described as <i>elegant.</i> Her hands are clasped before her, outstretched, like a prayer to the man who sits above, nothing in his eyes. Her eyes squeeze tight.</p><p>“Look at me, Catherine, darling.” The voice above her speaks. It is not gentle, but it is low. It would be foolish of her to believe he is trying to alleviate her embarrassment. He wishes only to scare her into submission, and he does so much easier with tone than with volume. “What is it that you wish to say?”</p><p>She lets her eyes linger on him, his red face and thick neck and empty eyes – no. That’s not quite true. His eyes are not empty, rather, they are full of a fire she has never quite seen before, raging, untamable. He may not feel anything for her, but this moment does not come without its weight, without its pleasure. He enjoys seeing her beg.</p><p>Tears fill her eyes; not all of them are a lie. She clasps her hands tighter until she feels them go white, until they shake. She tries to separate the fear from the anger, tries to push down the latter until it’s not even there, tries to swallow herself and survive.</p><p>“I’ve come…” her voice is too quiet, too soft. She sees his boot move and flinches, gets louder. “I’ve come to beg forgiveness, my lord.”</p><p>The smile that crosses his face is cold. “So you’ve seen the error of your ways.”</p><p>“Yes, my lord. I- I have.” She looks down, licking her lips. The air in the room is dry. She feels as if someone, somewhere, is watching her from far away. She hopes they understand what she’s doing. She hopes she hasn’t failed them.</p><p>“Do you think you deserve forgiveness?”</p><p>She hesitates. It’s a loaded question. He knows it, and so does she. But she is close, so close, and she can only keep going forward. “No, my lord. I must atone. But please, please…”</p><p>“Please, what?” Yes. There is pleasure in his voice.</p><p>“Please don’t kill me.”</p><p>Though he does not respond, she knows he has heard her. A finger is raised, guards are removed, a piece of parchment is burned, but the stench, the dirt, the film will linger, for years and years and centuries and lifetimes and she will never know anything different.</p><p>Her own words echo, bang around in her skull, loud and soft all at once. She lets her head hang, lets her hands fall, feels the tears spill from her eyes. There is a sound like heavy wind, like pressure on her ears, and her vision falls black.</p><p>“Cathy?” It is a voice, a decidedly female voice, and it hits Cathy like an open sack of flour, jolting sense into her. That heavy presence, his cold voice and hot, hot eyes, are outlined in the cloud until they fall away, leaving a chalky, dusty film that’ll be impossible to scrub off. </p><p>“Cathy, love, can you breathe for me? Yeah? Can you?”</p><p>It’s Anne’s voice, Cathy realizes. Anne is in front of her, crouched down on the floor with her hands on Cathy’s knees, looking up at her with… concern. Anne is worried about her.</p><p>“I’m okay,” but her voice cracks, and Anne looks less than convinced.</p><p>“What happened, mate?” Anne asks softly when she’s sure Cathy can breathe properly again. Wordlessly, the sixth queen turns the computer so Anne can see, dropping her hands to her lap to fidget with them.</p><p>“Fuck, Cath,” Anne whistles low, under her breath, and Cathy nods. “That’s… fuck. That’s some rubbish right there.”</p><p>Cathy makes a low hum of acknowledgement.</p><p>“Were you, um…” Anne seems unsure how to approach the question. “This isn’t…”</p><p>“This isn’t the first time, if that’s what you’re asking,” Cathy says bitterly. “Just the first time it’s been this… bad.”</p><p>“Shit, mate,” Anne falls onto her knees, hands swinging uselessly by her sides. She bites her lip in thought for a moment. Then, “you were thinking about him.”</p><p>It isn’t a question, and Cathy understands why. They all do, to an extent. There isn’t a soul in this house who hasn’t felt it, who hasn’t lost themselves in memory and fear and flour-film scars. Kit gets up and runs away sometimes during movies. Cleves makes sure to get twelve different opinions on her makeup before they go anywhere. Even Catalina doesn’t like to spend too long harping on the bad memories.</p><p>But Cathy’s never exactly admitted to it, is all. Kit says it herself in the show. She survived. What does she have to complain about?</p><p>Certainly less than Anne, who kneels on the ground in front of Cathy, the pinkish sawtooth scar on her neck just visible under the collar of her hoodie. <i>He</i> put that there. Anne’s trauma is marked clear on her body, and all Cathy has is flour in her eyes and trembling hands.</p><p>So she just gives a meek nod, pulls her knees up to her chest and tucks her face into them, letting the fabric of her leggings absorb the wetness that gathers in her eyes. There’s a scraping sound and she feels a warm hand tug on her arm. Something knocks her chair, and then Anne has pulled one up to sit next to her, so close their legs and arms bump into each other, and she has this smile on her face like she just <i>knows.</i> </p><p>Cathy doesn’t cry, but she does rest her head on Anne’s shoulder, and the second queen just wraps an arm around the smaller girl’s shoulders, holding her close. She rests her cheek on Cathy’s head, and Cathy feels the fingerprints Anne makes in the flour as she touches her.</p><p>“It’s okay to still be afraid,” Anne says, playing with Cathy’s curls. Cathy doesn’t say anything. “God knows I am. Why do you think I ask Jane to change it whenever the Cooking Channel is on?”</p><p>“The knives?”</p><p>“Yep.” They fall quiet. Anne’s hands in her hair feel nice. Cathy tucks her face against her neck and breathes in. Laundry detergent and thyme.</p><p>“He hated me, you know.”</p><p>Anne snorts. “He hated all of us. ‘Cept maybe Jane. But he probably hated her too.”</p><p>“No, I mean it. He really, really hated me.” Cathy pulls her head away and looks up at Anne. “This one time… we were arguing about religion. It was so silly, I hardly remember it now, but the next day… I got the arrest warrant sent to my chambers. I had to go and-” Her throat catches, and she feels Anne’s arm tighten around her shoulders. “I begged him not to kill me. He relented, but it took some time. Even then, it took him ages to tell the guards.”</p><p>Anne is looking at Cathy with an unreadable expression. For a moment, she thinks she overstepped. Because here she is, crying into Anne’s sweatshirt about how much that bloated tyrant pissed her off, and the girl in question is just listening while she has a scar around her neck and enough trauma to last her a lifetime. Anne didn’t get the chance to beg. Anne didn’t survive.</p><p>“If you’re sitting there feeling sorry for yourself, you best get over that quick,” Anne says finally, and Cathy just turns away. “Shit, Cath, that’s not what I meant,” the second queen says, sucking in a sharp breath. “Damn it. You know I’m awful at this.”</p><p>Cathy waits. She bites her lip. She tries not to cry. Anymore, at least.</p><p>“Just because you got out of there with your head still attached to your body doesn’t mean you didn’t go through the same shit the rest of us did, yeah? So you’re allowed to feel angry, still, and afraid, cause it sucked. Big time. Still does, if I’m honest.” Anne rubs the back of her neck, where Cathy knows it hurts the worst, and shoots the sixth queen an awkward half-smile. “But that’s okay. The memories aren’t going to hurt you any more than they already have, so, like, why pretend they can?”</p><p>Silence falls over them while Cathy wipes at her eyes. “That was pretty wise, you know,” she sniffles.</p><p>Anne smirks, but her eyes are bright. “I know.”</p><p>Cathy glances back at her computer, now asleep. It seems so silly now, just some circuitry and lights on a screen, dwarfed by the warmth coming from the body at Cathy’s side and the peaceful quiet of the kitchen. A little bit of flour still lingers, but as Anne stokes Cathy’s arm she feels it start to fall away. </p><p>“What were you doing up, anyway?” She yawns and snuggles closer to Anne. Now her panic-attack-induced adrenaline has faded, her lack of sleep is catching up with her.</p><p>“Nightmares,” Anne says plainly. Then. “Christ, we’re both <i>so</i> effed up, aren’t we?”</p><p>Cathy hums, her heart blooming a little at Anne’s casual use of <i>we.</i> “The best people are, I think,” she mumbles, and Anne laughs.</p><p>“Damn right. Just don’t tell Jane that, she’ll go on a mum rampage.”</p><p>Cathy chuckles, fisting a handful of Anne’s sweatshirt and curling up even closer. Anne is warm and she’s tired, so tired, more tired than she’s been in a week. She kind of just wants to curl up and sleep until Sunday.</p><p>“You alright there, mate?” Anne asks, and at Cathy’s mumbly reply, she snorts. “You know, if you try to sleep in that chair, you’re gonna hate yourself in the morning.” The sixth queen doesn’t respond, light snores already leaving her mouth. “Okay, suit yourself. I’ll be in my <i>very comfortable bed</i> if you need me.” Anne stands to leave, but at the last second, turns back. Cathy’s curled into herself in the chair, hair a mess, face slack and peaceful.</p><p>Anne rolls her eyes, and, against her better judgment, sits back down and wraps her arm around the sleeping queen.</p><p>When Jane finds them curled up together the next morning, she offers them a soft smile and slowly backs out of the kitchen. She can lecture them about sleeping in wooden chairs later. It’s about time someone in this house got a good night’s rest.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>come yell at me @amessofgaywords on twitter.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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